Monday 20 January 2014

THE PERFECT MATCH: ROAST BEEF AND A CHELSEA VICTORY!

Now
let’s see, the beef weighs 1.5 kg and the Chelsea game kicks off at 3pm.
That’ll do nicely. So 1.5 kg in pounds is 2.2 plus 1.1, so just under three and
a half pounds, at 20 minutes a pound plus your extra bit, that’ll be ... but no,
hang on.

There’s the Yorkshire pudding to consider.

Aha.

When
they’re scattering my ashes they won’t be debating whether I could write or
not. They’ll be talking about how I supported Chelsea FC, and that I made a decent
roast dinner.

So lucky
me, when I can combine the two. Happily, putting together a roast dinner is an
incredibly simple process, perfectly designed to be wrapped around a Chelsea
game.

In the
morning I do all the prepping. Carrots and green beans are ready to go, and
normally I’d have the spuds peeled and ready to parboil, but not today; not
when there’s a Yorkshire pudding to cook.

Roasting
meat is a process of cooling down. Start with a very hot oven, and then reduce
the heat all the way, but when you’re cooking a Yorkshire pudding, you’re going
to need a burning hot oven in the last half hour of cooking.

Lacking
the discipline to follow recipes, I’ve never actually measured the flour I
sieve into the bowl. Does that look right? Hmmm, just a bit more. Yeh, that’ll
do. Dump in 2 room temperature eggs and then whisk in a half pint of what we
used to call ‘milk’, but now has to be described as Full Fat Milk. Absolutely
none of those grey insipid liquids in yer Yorkie, for goodness sake.

A hit
of salt, a twist of pepper and because I have testicles I count 100 whisks this
way, 100 whisks that way, a few more because life is chaos and not order, and
whack the mix in the fridge to do its stuff.

A
quarter of an hour to kick off, heat the oven to 220, slap the heavy-bottomed
skillet on the hob and fetch the beef from my bedroom. It’s been out of the
fridge to loosen up for a couple of hours, stashed at the back of the house so
as not to torment the dog, or inadvertently feed the dog 1.5kg of raw beef!

Hold
the meat down into the hot skillet and seal it up until it’s caramelly and
smelling almost burned on the outside all over. All those juices are locked in
and there’s the lovely outside that makes roast beef extra yummy.

Blimey,
I just had a Nigella moment. Isn’t this the bit where I’m supposed to dip my
finger into a bowl of something, lick it and turn to camera with a seductive
smile?

No,
this is bloke cooking, so slide the beef into the oven, turning the heat down
straight away to 180.

That’s
it! That’s all you do. Except oh yes, I’m going to want a glass or three of red
wine with my meal, so I’ll open it now to let it breathe, and while I’m at it,
I’ll let some of it breathe in my glass.

Settled
on the sofa for kick off, Chelsea come out like they never saw a football
before. Oh dear, what’s this round thing that everyone’s kicking? It doesn’t
matter who’s wearing the Chelsea strip, over the decades we’ve always been a
team which doesn’t really start playing until we’re a goal down. If we get an
early goal, I spend the following 87 minutes anticipating the moment when, as
my much-missed Dad used to say,

“Chelsea
once again snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.”

At
last we’re losing. One-nil down from a corner. Bad defending, Cech fluffs the
ball and it rebounds off a defender into the net. Phew. That’s good, now we’ll
start playing.

Sure
enough, just before half time, Torres has one of those rare fits when he
temporarily turns into the player he used to be, passes two defenders and
whacks in the equaliser.Half
time. Lovely jubbly. Off to the kitchen

Line
another roasting tin with sunflower oil, get it in the oven and peel the spuds.
Load the spuds into the spitting hot fat, toss ‘em around a bit, take the beef
out, move it about a bit and baste it all over.

Sorted.
Back to the sofa with a re-loaded glass of Bordeaux for the second half. In the
62nd minute Mourinho makes his customary tactical substitutions and all of a
sudden we’re flying. Chelsea leading 2-1, then 3-1, the wine’s disappearing and
spirits are up.

Final
whistle, cheer out loud, turn the radio off, the tele onto Sky Sports News, hit
pause and make haste to the kitchen.

Chelsea
won, the wine’s working and you can call me Captain Kirk. Out with the beef,
wrapping to rest in several layers of silver foil. Now turn that oven up to
220, baste the spuds, splash a spoonful of the meat juices into the sunflower
oil in the Yorkie tin and put it in the oven to heat up.

If
your Yorkie’s going to succeed, that oil has to be smokin’ hot. Take the
pudding mix out of the fridge, whisk it and be patient. Wait for that oil to be
frazzling, pour the mix in, and leave it in that super-hot oven for 25 minutes.
That’s why I didn’t parboil the spuds today: they’re getting a full-on roasting
in this final half hour.

Put
the roasting tin on the hob, splash some wine in the pan and heat it up,
deglaze all the gooey bits and pour it into the gravy. Mmmhmm.

Boil
the veg, add the Snapper’s favourite frozen petit pois, carve the meat, lift
the risen Yorkshire pudding from the pan, add the veggies, crispy spuds and
horseradish sauce. Now retire to feast while watching post-match interviews
with a plate of food bigger than our heads. Come on you Blues!